


Falling Into Place

by Vav



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Frottage, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:13:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vav/pseuds/Vav
Summary: Dinesh and Gilfoyle unknowingly slip into a routine of annoying the shit out of each other while engaging in comfortable domesticity. If the domesticity is a little gay, well...
Relationships: Dinesh Chugtai/Bertram Gilfoyle
Comments: 26
Kudos: 105





	Falling Into Place

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i've never written sv fic before and haven't really read much either, so go easy on me please please please i'm nothing. feel free to leave a comment if you like it or come say hi on twitter (@wehohank)! thank you to @monroefuches for getting me into this show and filling my brain with lovely dinfoyle thoughts

Dinesh is brought out of his near-trance while coding only by the brash  _ thwap  _ of something hitting his desk, directly next to his left forearm. He blinks hard and looks up at the offending party. Gilfoyle’s already out of his field of vision, retreating to his corner desk behind Dinesh and slinking down into his chair. Gilfoyle has the comfiest chair in the hostel right now - Richard keeps telling them he’ll spring for some nicer desk chairs “soon,” but Dinesh knows it’s not in the budget. Nothing’s in the budget. There is no budget.

So Gilfoyle gets to rest comfortably while Dinesh sits, just like every day, on a hard, wooden dining chair. Dinesh feels a fleeting pang of jealousy for Gilfoyle’s ass. And then he remembers it’s attached to Gilfoyle himself. Dinesh doesn’t feel jealous anymore.

“So, what the fuck?” Dinesh opens. This ought to be good. There’s always something for them to fight about. The topic just depends on who’s in the mood to start what. He turns to face Gilfoyle fully, resting an elbow on the back of his own chair.

“It’s Life and Style. That’s the one you like, isn’t it?” Gilfoyle responds plainly, opening up his browser to do fuck all and completely ignoring the direct conversation Dinesh is trying to have. Dinesh glances at the magazine Gilfoyle had slapped down on his desk.

“It’s not - yes, it’s the one I like, but - you were supposed to be back  _ two hours ago _ . Where the fuck were you?” Dinesh asks, nearing exasperation, and this is only the third time he’s talked to Gilfoyle at all today. The first time was to ask Gilfoyle to put a shirt on when he had begun working in only his sweatpants that morning, the second to tell Gilfoyle where his keys were so he could borrow Dinesh’s car to go grocery shopping, and now...this.

“Ralph’s,” Gilfoyle states. “I got you your magazine. You’re welcome. Let me know all the hot goss when you’re finished reading it.” Gilfoyle’s fingers fly across the keyboard, a sound that makes Dinesh wrinkle his nose.

“You know I don’t get these to  _ read them _ , you idiot,” Dinesh argues. “I just like circling all the bad photoshops. They made Jennifer Anniston’s  _ calves  _ bigger in last month’s issue. Her calves! Who does that?” Gilfoyle ignores this. Dinesh’s face resets from one of amusement to one of annoyance. He would never admit it, but he also likes flipping through the pages of these cheesy celebrity magazines and imagining he’s one of the successful businessmen on the arm of any of those gorgeous women. Even Jennifer Aniston and her enlarged calves. “I was supposed to meet up with Wajeed at 1.”

“I got you your magazine, just say thank you. It’s not hard. Did your mother teach you manners, or did she only teach you how to be a little bitch?” Gilfoyle counters. A smile plays at Dinesh’s lips now. There he is.

“It’s not hard to bring my car back on time,” Dinesh retorts. He turns back to his computer and rolls his shoulders so he can continue working. He has a few lines of code left, then he can take a break. He may or may not have been waiting for Gilfoyle to return before even thinking about leaving his workstation, even though it’s now 2:30 and he hasn’t eaten since Erlich threw an apple at him full speed first thing in the morning. Dinesh thinks Erlich may have had a better career in the MLB than doing whatever the fuck he’s doing now. “Seriously, Gilfoyle, where the fuck were you?”

“Around. That’s between me and the man downstairs,” Gilfoyle answers. “Just read your magazine, honey.” Dinesh rolls his eyes.

* * *

“Look at you, you even do laundry like a prick,” Gilfoyle comments, and it’s certainly not the first time, given that he’s seen Dinesh do laundry at least a few dozen times before. But it’s a Thursday, and Gilfoyle hates Thursdays - calls them Friday’s Cockblock - and he’s in the mood to engage in his favorite weekday activity: annoying the everloving shit out of Dinesh Chugtai.

Dinesh does his best to ignore Gilfoyle, but the man’s standing five feet away and criticizing both every piece of clothing Dinesh pulls out of the dryer and the way he folds each piece of said clothing. There are three things in life Dinesh is incredibly particular about: his code, his hair, and his clothes. He’s not going to let some disheveled, flannel-wearing egotist tell him that the way he folds his clothes is wrong.

“I bet you don’t even wash your clothes,” is Dinesh’s best comeback at the moment. It’s been a long day; Dinesh just wants to have a drink and play some video games, but of course Gilfoyle can’t make anything easy on him.

“Who the fuck do you think buys the detergent for this house?” Gilfoyle asks incredulously. “I probably do more laundry than all of you fucks combined.”

“Yeah, because you’re so...stinky,” Dinesh half-heartedly snaps, and Gilfoyle fails to bite back a low, condescending chuckle - not that he made much of an effort.

Jared rounds the corner into the kitchen with a basket full of clothes that need to be washed - mostly his “casual” vests and jeans as well as some pairs of underwear, as everything else is too “delicate” and gets taken to the cleaners on a weekly basis. However, given that Gilfoyle is leaning against the washing machine with a shit-eating grin on his face, Jared nods to himself respectfully, puts on a brave face, and retreats to the garage with his clothes. He’ll try again in an hour or two.

“Do you think folding your underwear like that will get you laid, Dinesh?”

“Why are you watching me fold my underwear, pervert?” Dinesh responds as he folds his boxer briefs neatly and compactly so that all the edges are tucked away and all his underwear can fit harmoniously together in his dresser drawer. He picked up the technique from a YouTube video a few months ago, and it’s honestly changed his life. Dinesh has never been particularly untidy, but living in the hacker hostel with some of the messiest men on the planet - namely Erlich Bachman - has made him feel the need to overcompensate. “Folding laundry is a sign of...maturity, anyway. Women love it.”

“Yeah? That why your last six Tinder dates have gone so well?” Dinesh hadn’t realized Gilfoyle had been keeping count. Whatever. It’s perfectly normal for a man to go this long without sex, and even longer without a meaningful, fulfilling relationship. That’s just guy stuff. Women are hard. That’s life.

“Oh, fuck off.” Gilfoyle watches Dinesh fold yet another tremendously ugly rugby shirt - possibly his worst one, and they’re all fucking terrible - and place it in his laundry basket. 

“Hey, if the Blues Clues shirts aren’t a hit with the ladies, you always have an open invitation to chortle my balls.”

* * *

Dinesh stands in the hall a few days later, phone with Twitter open in one hand and a power bar in the other. Gilfoyle stands folding his laundry in the kitchen - usually he does this in the privacy of his own bedroom, but it’s hot as fuck today and that area of the house is one of the only ones with a functioning ventilation. Dinesh can see Gilfoyle, but Gilfoyle’s got headphones in and isn’t wearing his glasses and is completely oblivious to Dinesh’s presence.

Dinesh watches as Gilfoyle picks up a pair of black boxer briefs - a newer pair, by the looks of the intact waistband and leg holes that haven’t been completely stretched out yet. And Dinesh watches intently as Gilfoyle carefully and a little clumsily folds the pair into a neat little square to place into his small laundry basket among the rest of his black, gray, and occasionally red clothes and undergarments. Who’s the prick now?

Dinesh saunters smugly to his bedroom, plucking a banana off the kitchen counter on his way. He hesitates momentarily in the doorway to his neat, clean-smelling and slightly barren room with the window slightly open and his bed freshly made. He’s momentarily alarmed by the way in which he was able to analyze the status of Gilfoyle’s -  _ fucking  _ Gilfoyle’s - underwear. He shakes himself out of it and closes his bedroom door to settle in for an evening marathon of Cutthroat Kitchen. That’s a problem for another day.

* * *

Dinesh doesn’t know why he does this, but he takes the long way home on the drive back from his barber one weekend. It doesn’t dawn on him until he’s coming up on the turn for their favorite liquor store - the one by Erlich’s old dealer and the spot where Jared saw someone get run over with a stray Trader Joe’s shopping cart. It’s Saturday. He can treat himself. And they’re almost out of bourbon.

Dinesh doesn’t get bourbon, though. It’s not on sale, and he’s not about to pay full price for something he could definitely mooch off of Erlich for free if the time is right.

Instead, Dinesh leaves the liquor store with a six pack of some disgusting IPA with an ugly logo of a fish on each can that he will never even consider drinking. Well, maybe one. The beer wasn’t on sale either, but it’s just a six pack. Dinesh will live.

* * *

He doesn’t know where Gilfoyle is when he gets home, but the sound of the cans as he stocks them in the fridge seems to summon the man. Sometimes Dinesh isn’t sure if Gilfoyle is a Satanist or rather Satan himself. He induces enough misery to play either role quite well.

“Oh, cool, I’ve been meaning to try that one,” Gilfoyle murmurs absentmindedly. He reaches into the fridge alongside Dinesh, their arms touching briefly, to grab the last bottle of some other annoying craft beer with a platypus or whatever on the label. Dinesh tried calling Gilfoyle a hipster once when they were both a little drunk and Gilfoyle had a fistful of Dinesh’s stupidly high-collared shirt within seconds. A warning, but a warning that had only made Dinesh want to do it again. “Nice haircut.”

Gilfoyle abruptly leaves the room to go sit out by the pool. Dinesh isn’t sure if that was sarcasm or not. It wasn’t followed up by a snippy comment or a sly dig, but Gilfoyle’s definitely a little high and his mussed hair tells Dinesh he must have fallen asleep outside. Gilfoyle’s always a little off his game right when he wakes up. That must be it. Gilfoyle will surely have an asinine hair-related insult for him later.

* * *

Gilfoyle doesn’t. Dinesh hears the words “nice haircut” every time he looks in the mirror for the next two days.

* * *

Gilfoyle has a habit of misplacing his glasses whenever he takes a shower while he’s high. Sober Gilfoyle takes his glasses off in the bathroom like a normal, functioning human being. High Gilfoyle takes them off elsewhere in the house and promptly gets upset when he exits the shower to find that they’re not waiting for him on the sink like they should be. This, nine times out of ten, prompts a frustrated -

“Dinesh, did you take my fucking glasses?” Gilfoyle shouts - well, says in a stern voice at a higher than usual volume - from where he has the bathroom door cracked open. 

“Why would I take your fucking glasses? I have perfect fucking vision,” Dinesh calls back, and he hears Gilfoyle muttering something to himself. Dinesh re-invests himself in the rhythm game he’s playing on his phone, but it’s not long before he hears the subtle pat-pat-pat of Gilfoyle walking out into the living room. This is the part that Dinesh enjoys the least.

“Alright, where are they?” Gilfoyle asks gruffly, and Dinesh pauses the game once more to twist his body to look at his roommate - friend? mortal enemy? both and neither? - fresh out of the shower. Gilfoyle squints as he tries to discern which game Dinesh is playing while being completely unable to make out anything except the purple tint of the pause menu.

“Kitchen counter. You left them on the couch and Jared almost sat on them,” Dinesh explains. “Then he apologized profusely for about two minutes even though I told him I actually wish he had sat on them.” Dinesh doesn’t like that he does it, but he finds his eyes settling on Gilfoyle’s stupid cross tattoo and the water droplets still rolling down his arm.

“Jared weighs about as much as a paper crane. He wouldn’t have even fucked up my glasses,” Gilfoyle responds. Dinesh’s eyes trail up to Gilfoyle’s wet hair, long strands of brown starting to take the shape of their natural waves as his hair dries. Drops of water landing on Gilfoyle’s collarbone, getting lost in the dark thatch of chest hair that Dinesh had never expected him to have. The first time he saw Gilfoyle shirtless was a trip and a half. Just because he wasn’t expecting some things. He may have stared a second longer than he wanted to, but it was just out of curiosity. Of the tattoos. That sounds right, doesn’t it?

“That’s what I’m saying!” Dinesh agrees, and they find themselves staring at each other in amusement, which is a wide smile for Dinesh and a slight smirk with eyebrows raised for Gilfoyle. If there’s one thing they can come together on, it’s dunking on Jared. 

“Thanks for not stealing my glasses,” Gilfoyle shrugs and turns to retrieve them in the kitchen.

“Yeah, well, I’m not in middle school.”

“Could have fooled me. You certainly dress like a middle schooler.”

* * *

Dinesh gets up before Gilfoyle and pours Gilfoyle’s bowl of cereal for him.

* * *

Gilfoyle gets up before Dinesh and puts Dinesh’s bagel in the toaster for him. He calls out Dinesh’s name. 

The unspoken agreement. Gilfoyle turns the toaster setting up to the highest and hottest one. Dinesh has about two minutes to get up while the bagel’s toasting. If the bagel burns, it burns. If it sets the house on fire, it sets the house on fire, and Gilfoyle would be sure to let everybody in Palo Alto know that Dinesh Chugtai let their beloved hacker hostel burn to the ground. 

It’s never come to that. Gilfoyle kind of hopes it would, but he also likes having a place to sleep every night, even though Dinesh also sleeps there within 100 feet of him.

Dinesh rushes into the kitchen in his pajamas, still blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Gilfoyle makes his hundredth comment about Dinesh being a pussy for not sleeping naked. They sit across from each other, Dinesh with his bagel and Gilfoyle with his cereal, as they swipe through the day’s news on their phones.

* * *

“Good afternoon, Gilfoyle!” Jared states cheerfully. Gilfoyle knew being alone in the house with Jared would be bad news for him. Dinesh and Richard went to go pick up coffee - Richard and Jared’s definition of a Friday “treat” - and Erlich made Jian Yang drive him to the dispensary so Erlich could smoke on the way home. Gilfoyle should have taken this time to take a walk or a nap or anything else besides work, but he thought that putting his nose to the grindstone so he could finish early today was a smart idea. Obviously not.

“What?” Gilfoyle asks plainly, not turning around to look at Jared, but that doesn’t wipe the pleasant smile off of Jared’s face.

“I hope your Friday is everything you want it to be!” Jared chimes. He’s obviously not going away, so no, this day is not what Gilfoyle wants it to be. “I have a quick question. Not work related!” Gilfoyle lets his shoulders relax, breathes out a sigh, and glances over at Jared, willing him to go on. “Is there a reason my bags of spinach keep getting moved to the very back of the bottom shelf in the refrigerator?”

Gilfoyle and Dinesh have this theory together that Jared was raised by giraffes. He eats raw spinach by the bag and will consume an entire salad with no dressing on it if they forget to give him ranch at a restaurant. Dinesh looks on with horror every single time this happens. Gilfoyle takes pictures. 

“Yes,” Gilfoyle simply states. Jared rocks back on his heels and wrings his hands, grin wide as he expects Gilfoyle to continue. Gilfoyle rolls his eyes before he does so. “Dinesh kept throwing a fit because his protein drinks were getting pushed to the back on the bottom shelf. So I swapped them with your goat food so he could stop bitching.” Jared cranes his neck forward, eyes widening slightly. The man really does look like some sort of small, abandoned woodland creature, if that woodland creature were freakishly tall and pale. Gilfoyle doesn’t know what Richard sees in him, but that’s something Dinesh told him he’s not allowed to say out loud until the day Jared and Richard finally bang one out. Jared’s said a very similar thing to Richard regarding the other two.

“Okay, well, I’m sure we can work out a configuration where everybody’s able to access their food and drink with relative ease,” Jared reasons, pleasant grin still on his face. “I only ask because it’s not ergonomically sensible for me, at my height, to have to bend down that far to retrieve my items.” Gilfoyle stares blankly up at Jared. “I think arranging items on the shelves by height of their owner is the most logical conclusion. So, for example, Erlich and myself would utilize the top shelf, you and Richard the middle, and Dinesh and Jian Yang get the bottom.” Gilfoyle snorts a laugh, and Jared’s light eyebrows furrow slightly, still smiling. “That way, Jian Yang is the only person he has to-”

“I want to see you call Dinesh a bottom to his face when he gets back,” Gilfoyle muses and turns back to his work, beginning to type away once more.

“Oh! I’m sure you know I didn’t mean this system to serve as any reflection of anyone’s preferred sexual configuration,” Jared explains, and the grin on Gilfoyle’s face widens. “I just think it makes sense for us to all have our own quadrant of the fridge based on how easy it is to retrieve the items. Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be a quadrant if there are six of us, huh? So more like a sextant.”

“I need you,” Gilfoyle starts, “to tell Dinesh. That he’s a bottom. In a sextant of men.” He looks up at Jared again. “I’m not a begging man, Jared.” Jared sputters a little bit, always unsure of how to go about a conversation with Gilfoyle, especially when it’s just the two of them. Gilfoyle turns away again. “I don’t give a fuck what you do with the fridge. It’s just cute watching Dinesh try to reach things on the top shelf.”

“Oh!” Jared remarks with softening eyes, tilting his head slightly. “I…” Gilfoyle lets his eyes slip closed as he tries to maintain composure. He realizes how that must have sounded. “I didn’t know you-”

“Cute as in pitiful,” Gilfoyle clarifies, opening his eyes to hit Jared with that same, emotionless stare. “Dinesh is short. Watching him struggle to do tall people things amuses me.” 

“I think Dinesh is a perfectly average height, actually. A lot of us in this house are equipped with vertical blessings, which might make him-”

“Do whatever you want with the fridge. I have work to do,” Gilfoyle dismisses Jared, then opens up Reddit on his browser once Jared’s no longer in the room.

* * *

“I swear to god, Gilfoyle, if you put your feet on me…” Dinesh trails off, eyeing Gilfoyle warily as they lounge together on the couch. They’re taking turns playing Battlefield while Richard paces in the next room - over what, they’re none the wiser. 

“You swear to who?” Gilfoyle retorts, mashing buttons in a way that somehow makes sense to the game, because he’s sniping people left and right and his team’s about to win the round by a landslide. “Your holy objections mean nothing to me.” 

“Just keep your feet  _ off _ of me,” Dinesh repeats, and, of course, Gilfoyle slides his socked feet closer in response. Gilfoyle’s been complaining about his feet periodically all day - he worked out for the first time in ages yesterday and his feet are sore from jogging too far a distance in improper shoes. 

Gilfoyle waits until Dinesh is in the middle of a heated round of Conquest to put his feet across his thighs, extending himself all the way across the length of the couch while Dinesh is tucked into the opposite corner. Gilfoyle thoroughly understands Dinesh’s fucked up sense of pride, and knows that he’d rather die than do anything to compromise is “hot streak” in the game - which, to Dinesh, means getting two kills the entire round. 

“You low-life motherfucker,” Dinesh says slowly through gritted teeth, and he hears Gilfoyle’s low chuckle from the other side of the couch. Dinesh doesn’t dare look over, instead concentrating on his encounter with an enemy player who, of course, quickly kills him with a shotgun. “Look what you made me do! He killed me!”

“That’s got nothing to do with me. You just suck major scrotum at this game,” Gilfoyle tells him matter of factly. 

Dinesh fumes silently, but doesn’t remove Gilfoyle’s feet from his lap. At least he’s got socks on. When the round is over, Dinesh doesn’t even think about their system of trading off before he’s launching into a new one. He looks over at Gilfoyle once he realizes his error, about to extend the controller to him, but he finds Gilfoyle already sound asleep, head propped up on a pillow and arms crossed over his chest.

Well, what the fuck? Dinesh learned quickly in their friendship - enemyship? rivalship? companionate existence? - that the worst idea anybody could possibly have would be to wake Gilfoyle up from a nap. He doesn’t take them often, but when he does, it’s because he really needs them. It’s incredibly rare for him to fall asleep anywhere that isn’t his own bed with the door locked - something about getting his face drawn on at a sleepover in middle school - so Dinesh steels his face as he realizes what has to be done. 

Dinesh plays through one last round then shuts the console and TV off. He scrolls through Reddit and Twitter and Instagram for about a half hour. When he realizes Gilfoyle’s not waking up anytime soon, he rolls his eyes and grabs the throw blanket that’s draped over the arm of the couch. It’s actually not a bad day for a nap. Richard finally took whatever existential crisis he was having to his bedroom, the sun is setting outside, and there’s a bit of a cool breeze wafting through a nearby open window on an otherwise slightly humid day. Dinesh considers who should get the blanket before he settles in for a nap of his own, head nestling comfortably in the nook between couch arm and cushion. Gilfoyle’s a dick, so he automatically loses blanket rights.

* * *

Dinesh covers Gilfoyle’s lower body with the blanket anyway, careful not to wake him.

* * *

When Dinesh wakes, his lap is occupied by the blanket instead of Gilfoyle’s appendages. The other end of the couch is empty. Dinesh doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

* * *

They’re a little tipsy after a meeting with some guys from whatever the fuck, which went horribly wrong because who gives a shit. It hasn’t been the greatest day, but now Dinesh and Gilfoyle are poolside, swapping beers and insulting each other’s social skills that reared their ugly heads at the meeting today. At least they were more competent than Richard.

“Give me another sip,” Gilfoyle demands, reaching out for Dinesh’s beer. They both grabbed a different bottle from the fridge, and now they’re trying to decide which one is better. Neither of them are very good. That’s what they get for letting Jared do the booze shopping for the week. 

Dinesh grabs for Gilfoyle’s at the same time that Gilfoyle grabs for Dinesh’s, and their fingertips brush against one another’s in the process of trading drinks. Dinesh keeps his eyes on Gilfoyle as they both knock the last few sips of each bottle back, not caring that their lips have been all over both. Time feels slower than usual.

“It probably didn’t help that you were wearing this egregious bumblebee massacre of a shirt,” Gilfoyle teases lowly, suppressing a burp. It doesn’t quite make sense, but Dinesh likes the way Gilfoyle strings together long words just for the sake of saying long words. Dinesh looks down at his yellow and black striped rugby shirt. He can’t really argue against that analogy, but he still likes the shirt. Mostly because this shirt pisses Gilfoyle off the most.

“You want me to take it off?” Dinesh fires back

“Fucking please,” Gilfoyle states in exasperation, but the way he says it makes a little shiver run up Dinesh’s spine. They both know Dinesh doesn’t go anywhere without an undershirt on, partly due to his general bodily insecurity but also due to the way he tends to sweat through at least one layer when talking to women. 

Gilfoyle grumbles something about making Jared bring them more beer, but when Dinesh is finished peeling his rugby shirt off, he notes that Gilfoyle had been watching. Gilfoyle has no shame, so he doesn’t look away, just stares directly at Dinesh’s face. Dinesh swears he sees a tinge of pink to Gilfoyle’s cheeks just above the line of his full beard. Dinesh is just wearing a simple long-sleeve t-shirt underneath. There’s nothing to even look at. 

Dinesh has been...confused by Gilfoyle recently. They fight less. There’s still the bickering, still the throwing things at each other, still the almost toxic competition between the two. But Gilfoyle held the door open for him before the meeting today. Gilfoyle put cream cheese on Dinesh’s bagel - which he had also removed from the toaster on time - the morning before last. Gilfoyle had covered Dinesh with the blanket that evening that they fell asleep on the couch together. Gilfoyle started mimicking the way Dinesh does laundry, for fuck’s sake.

Dinesh supposes he isn’t entirely in the clear. He’s accidentally been being nicer to Gilfoyle, and he’s not sure which of the two started this trend. He still dodges Gilfoyle’s “your mom” jokes left and right, but there are quiet moments now. They never really had those up until recently. Dinesh allows the silence because he knows Gilfoyle is generally a quiet person until there’s someone who needs humiliating. And Gilfoyle still does plenty of that - took Dinesh’s phone and sent an embarrassing message about the size of his penis to a Tinder match - but they rest together more often. Like now.

Dinesh is about to say something, but Gilfoyle cuts him off, which comes as a bit of a surprise.

“Do you know what shotgunning is, Dinesh?” Gilfoyle asks, producing a joint seemingly out of nowhere and fishing his lighter out of his pocket. Usually Gilfoyle steals one of Erlich’s pieces or one of his eclectic bongs, but apparently he didn’t have time for such fanfare this evening. 

“Like beer? Like what I did in college to impress girls?”

“You knew girls in college? I need evidence.”

“I had a  _ girlfriend _ , Gilfoyle.”

“Okay, now I definitely need evidence,” he murmurs, eyes wide. Dinesh scoffs and rolls his eyes. Their old routine. “But no. Shotgunning with weed.” Dinesh tentatively raises his brows. That’s not one he’s heard of before.

“Do you poke a hole in the joint and suck the weed out?” Dinesh jokes, but Gilfoyle stares instead of laughing. Dinesh doesn’t think Gilfoyle’s ever laughed at a joke of his that wasn’t made at someone else’s expense. The guy really is kind of an asshole. Dinesh spends the majority of his free time with him anyway. 

“Shotgunning. Where you take a hit and blow the smoke into the other person’s mouth,” Gilfoyle explains. “It sounds grosser than it is.”

“It sounds sexual,” Dinesh corrects him. “Like, making out but with weed smoke in the middle. Like a weed smoke sandwich.” Gilfoyle rolls his eyes and lights the joint, taking an initial hit just to distract himself from the way Dinesh always seems to talk a million miles an hour.

“It’s not always sexual, you depraved little freak,” Gilfoyle fires back. “I know you don’t really smoke, so that would be an alternative if you wanted to join me.” Dinesh’s eyebrows raise even further. Join him? Keep doing things together? “But I should have known you’d be too much of a bitch.” Gilfoyle’s never pressured Dinesh to smoke - Dinesh much prefers getting completely plastered and Gilfoyle doesn’t care enough about Dinesh’s preferences. Right now he’s just being snippy because Dinesh keeps looking to the house, likely to go inside and go to bed or get another beer and play video games, and Gilfoyle would kind of like that to not happen. 

“I don’t want to put my mouth on yours. I don’t know where that thing’s been.”

“We just shared 4 beers,” Gilfoyle reminds him, and begins to take off his flannel. It’s not necessarily warm out, but Gilfoyle’s feeling warm underneath the collar and an outer layer isn’t working in his favor right now. “We’ve been swapping spit all night.” Dinesh’s mouth falls open a little bit. “Live with that.” Another hit off the joint. Dinesh watches the smoke curl in a wicked way into the dark, crisp night air as it leaves Gilfoyle’s mouth. “Also, your mouths don’t have to touch. You’re just horny.” 

“I’m not horny,” Dinesh pouts. “You’re horny.” Gilfoyle tilts his head up and looks at the stars, able to make out more than usual. No fog, not a ton of light pollution in the neighborhood. All the lights are off inside the house due to Richard’s immediate departure into a depression slumber at 8pm. It’s nice. Quiet. Or it would be, without Dinesh’s constant bitching. 

“Huff my taint, Dinesh,” Gilfoyle sighs, then takes another hit.

“Fine.” Gilfoyle blows more smoke as Dinesh speaks.

“Fine what?” Gilfoyle asks. “You’ll huff my taint? I can unzip right now.”

“Shotgunning. Fine. I’ll try it,” Dinesh responds, crossing his arms over his chest like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. “Since  _ you  _ want me to so badly.” Gilfoyle’s slow to sit up so he’s upright in the lounge chair, and even slower to swing his legs over the side to face Dinesh. He doesn’t usually get cross faded, but it feels kind of nice right now. A nice floaty middle ground, not quite stoned and not quite drunk, and not quite about to put his mouth on Dinesh’s.

“Since you gave your consent,” Gilfoyle shrugs, but misses the way Dinesh’s hands twitch when he unfolds his arms and rests his palms on his knees, his and Gilfoyle’s legs almost touching as they face each other on the pool chairs.

“Oh, you are  _ such  _ a gentleman,” Dinesh remarks, face screwed into something seething and bitter as his voice drips with sarcasm. Why is he doing this? Why did Gilfoyle even bring it up? None of Dinesh’s friends have ever suggested this to him before. How has he been living with Erlich, the biggest stoner he knows, this long and yet is completely clueless as to this “shotgunning?”

Oh. 

Because it’s a joke. Gilfoyle’s fucking with him. This isn’t even a thing. Gilfoyle made it up. Gilfoyle leans forward with an elbow on his knee and takes another hit. What’s he going to do? Spit on Dinesh? Shove the joint in his mouth? Hit him in the balls? Tackle him into the pool? Maybe worst of all, pull back and laugh at Dinesh for even being open to the idea in the first place? Or even-

Dinesh opens his mouth out of instinct when Gilfoyle leans in. Gilfoyle gets close, so close that Dinesh panics and starts to think he was lying about the whole not-kissing thing. But then Gilfoyle’s exhaling, and Dinesh’s eyes slip shut as Gilfoyle’s do the same. Gilfoyle’s free hand lands on the junction of Dinesh’s neck and shoulder as the smoke lingers between them both, most of it finding its way into Dinesh’s mouth. Dinesh was expecting Gilfoyle to crudely blow smoke at him, but this...this is almost…

Erotic?

Tender?

_ Sweet?  _

Can anything involving Gilfoyle be sweet?

“Holy mother of fuck, what the fuck are you two assholes doing?!” Erlich all but yells across the pool from outside the door that they hadn’t heard open. Dinesh jerks backward so violently his entire chair scrapes along the ground, making Gilfoyle wince at the harsh sound. “Am I interrupting something? Are you force feeding Dinesh my fucking pot?” 

“Some of us can afford our own pot,” Gilfoyle calls back feigning calmness, but his voice is slightly higher than usual. Dinesh stands up abruptly.

“I have to go now!” he announces for all parties involved. Erlich lights a cigarette and watches Dinesh speed walk around the pool without bothering to say goodnight to Gilfoyle. It’s not even midnight but Dinesh is ready to lay face down in his bed until he, hopefully, falls asleep. Or dies. Whichever comes first. The embarrassment doesn’t even come from the thing itself - it comes from the fact that Erlich saw them and his reaction told Dinesh that that wasn’t normal.

Gilfoyle waits until Dinesh is in the house with the door slammed shut behind him and Erlich waltzes closer to the edge of the pool.

“You’re a fucking prick,” Gilfoyle says loud enough for Erlich to hear, then carefully puts out the joint and follows Dinesh’s footsteps to head back inside, leaving their beer bottles and his lighter on the other side of the pool.

* * *

Dinesh doesn’t go to sleep right away.

He tries, but he sees long brown hair every time he closes his eyes. A fire lights itself inside of him and every single one of his limbs feels twitchy. He can’t stay still. Usually the brown hair is attached to a celebrity, or a girl he nearly got the number of at a party, or even Monica during a very confusing dream, but Dinesh wants to rip out his own brain stem so he can ask it why the fuck he can’t stop thinking about Bertram Gilfoyle.

It’s not like Dinesh is gay. “Code gay” was a funny gag, but it ended when Dinesh not-so-humorously snapped at Gilfoyle for bringing it up at a tech mixer as they talked with two girls they probably both could have had a shot with.  _ Dinesh is gay, by the way. Not gay gay, just code gay. He’s gay for my code. He thinks my coding is sexy as hell, so, by proxy, he thinks I’m sexy, too. He just won’t admit it. So he’s just code gay while he figures it all out _ .

Dinesh was  _ furious _ . All Gilfoyle ever does is rag on him for not having much experience with women, and then he swoops in to sabotage every chance he ever does end up getting. Dinesh just wants to go on more than one date with a beautiful woman and bring her back home to have undoubtedly mind-blowing sex. That’s how this is all supposed to go, right? It’s obviously not hard for Erlich or Gilfoyle or Jared to get women. So what’s wrong with Dinesh?

He curses at himself as he jerks off because a part of him wanted Gilfoyle to lean in all the way. It’s definitely just the beer talking, but Dinesh’s heart leapt just the slightest bit when Gilfoyle placed his hand on him so gently yet firmly. Gilfoyle seems to only touch him when he’s trying to wrestle something out of Dinesh’s hands, or on one of the very few occasions when their pissing contests get so heated they actually shove or slap one another.

Is Dinesh really so touch starved? Gilfoyle’s right - he really is the most pathetic bastard on the planet. He’s so pathetic that he actually  _ enjoyed  _ being close to Gilfoyle like that, wanted him to do it again if Erlich hadn’t interrupted and ruined Dinesh’s entire life. It’s always something. Embarrassment always follows whenever Dinesh hangs out with Gilfoyle. Maybe he should just stop. But he can’t. He’s touching himself and thinking of Gilfoyle and it’s too far and too much and his face is hot with shame but he can’t stop seeing the tight grip Gilfoyle always has on his beer bottles, the sweat that dampens his shirt anytime he does anything remotely physical, the way his body always look so fresh and toned after a hot shower.

Dinesh adds “tissues” to the shopping list on his phone and plans to get out of the house for a while tomorrow - Saturday - just to have some time to himself. You can be straight with an exception, right? An exception that only pops into your mind when you’re buzzed?

Or exceptionally tired?

Or really hungry and irritable?

Or incredibly happy that your code didn’t shit the bed for once?

Or randomly throughout the day?

Right?

* * *

“Shotgun,” is the first word Gilfoyle says to Dinesh the next day, and it’s after Dinesh conceded to letting Jared and Gilfoyle tag along to go to the grocery store. Saying no would have just spurred on an argument between him and Gilfoyle, and Dinesh can’t get a read on the vibe today. Gilfoyle still made him his bagel, even had a glass of orange juice ready for him when Dinesh woke up. But they didn’t speak. No “thank you”s or “good morning”s. So, the usual.

“Um, Gilfoyle, I was wondering if I could actually have the front seat?” Jared asks innocently as they walk out to Dinesh’s car. “We’re both tall gentlemen, but I think my legs might be a bit longer than yours. Would that be okay?” Gilfoyle gets all the way to the front passenger seat and puts his hand on the handle, staring blankly at Jared.

“Do you not understand the rules of shotgun?”

“Well, we never really did that growing up. Whenever somebody said ‘shotgun’ it always meant something  _ completely  _ different,” Jared explains with wide eyes and a smile. “But, you’re definitely a man of your word. I’ll let you have the front seat.” Jared says this as if there would be any way he could physically stop Gilfoyle from sitting up there.

“Bastard,” Dinesh whispers under his breath when Gilfoyle joins him in the front and Jared walks around the car toward the back seat behind Dinesh.

“I know, right?” Gilfoyle responds loudly as Jared opens the door. “Jared’s a total scumbag. I agree completely, Dinesh.”

* * *

The grocery store is surprisingly easy once Dinesh realizes that Gilfoyle hadn’t made the shotgun comment at his expense. Jared keeps offering to reach things on the top shelves for them so Dinesh and Gilfoyle launch into a minutes-long bit about Slenderman and those girls from that one place who killed their friend or whatever in the name of Slenderman. A mother ushers her children away from the three of them after catching one glimpse of Gilfoyle. Dinesh gets another two minutes of dunkable material out of that.

“Tissues? I thought I just got you a box last week,” Gilfoyle teases in his same deadpan manner as Jared checks out the cleaning supplies on the other side of the aisle.

“It  _ is  _ allergy season, Gilfoyle,” Jared contributes politely.

“Yeah, it  _ is  _ allergy season, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh doubles down, and Gilfoyle rolls his eyes.

“Alright, you two enjoy your jerk-fest. I’m gonna go grab beer,” Gilfoyle mutters, but he walks away with a slight smirk on his face.

* * *

They fall back into it like nothing happened the night before - and, when Dinesh swallows his anxiety, nothing did technically happen. He and Gilfoyle shotgunned, Dinesh’s mind and body got thrown out of whack from being that close to another person in who knows how long, he jerked off about it, and now they’re back to normal. Gilfoyle was probably normal the whole time.

* * *

They fall asleep on the couch together more and more frequently, usually while Jared and Richard are talking in hushed tones in the kitchen. They prepare blankets every time they play video games together because one of them’s inevitably going to fall asleep, and the other will inevitably follow.

* * *

They fold laundry together some nights. Gilfoyle will tell Dinesh he’s doing it all wrong, as if Dinesh isn’t the one who showed Gilfoyle how to fold everything in the first place. Gilfoyle accidentally ends up with a pair of Dinesh’s underwear. When Dinesh asks anyone if they’ve seen it, Gilfoyle silently goes back to coding.

* * *

They go to a bar for something Big Head invited them to. Dinesh doesn’t even try to flirt with any of the girls there. He hangs back with Gilfoyle, lets Gilfoyle berate his choice of drink, and lets Gilfoyle make more virgin jokes every single time a woman even looks their way.

* * *

Dinesh runs his fingers through Gilfoyle’s hair, and - wait, Dinesh runs his fingers through Gilfoyle’s hair? Gilfoyle’s at his desk on yet another warm spring day, and Dinesh first peeked over his shoulder to be annoying. Then he leaned on the back of Gilfoyle’s chair to be doubly annoying and distract Gilfoyle from writing decent code. Then he put one hand on Gilfoyle’s head to downright piss him off. Nobody touches Gilfoyle’s hair.

Gilfoyle tensed up a bit, but didn’t say anything. So Dinesh starts touching, stroking, damn near petting Gilfoyle’s hair absentmindedly as he goes on about how he wonders where that guy Sanjaya from American Idol ended up, and how he’s even more curious about that girl in the audience who cried because she loved Sanjaya so much.

Then Dinesh has both fingers skimming Gilfoyle’s hair gently. It’s just a game - he’ll give it a few more seconds before he musses it up then runs away before Gilfoyle attempts to hunt him for sport. But then Dinesh’s fingers stroke up by Gilfoyle’s temples and smooth some stray hairs back behind his ears. He keeps repeating the motion, almost pulling Gilfoyle’s hair gently into a ponytail configuration with each swipe.

“Do you have a hair tying thingy?” Dinesh asks softly, much more softly than he was intending. The softness takes away the playfulness of the whole thing, and Dinesh swallows hard as his body starts to tell him that perhaps Gilfoyle is less of an exception and more of a rule. “Or a rubber band?”

“If you put a rubber band anywhere near my hair, Dinesh, I will smother you,” Gilfoyle tells him matter-of-factly, then has to clear his throat. He hadn’t talked in far too long. “You’re not even supposed to be touching it in the first place.”

“Then why are you letting me?” Dinesh grins, sounding like an annoying little brother. Gilfoyle doesn’t respond, just grabs a black elastic hair tie from his desk and hands it back to Dinesh.

“Against my better judgment, I’m going to let you attempt to do this,” Gilfoyle sighs. He knows Dinesh will fuck it up and he’ll just undo it the minute he’s done anyway, but the house is empty and it’s a comfortable, lazy day - almost quitting time - and Gilfoyle really doesn’t have much to lose.

But Dinesh had two younger sisters growing up, and he pays enough attention to Gilfoyle - whether or not he means to - that he knows how Gilfoyle always puts his hair up. Not all of it, just enough strands from the top to form a little bun that gets his hair out of his face and off of his cheeks while the rest spills down the back of his neck. Dinesh kind of likes it that way. It lets him see Gilfoyle’s entire beard. Not that he likes beards, or Gilfoyle’s in particular, but...it’s just nice. It suits him. It’s not gay to think that.

Dinesh is gentle with Gilfoyle’s hair, works his fingers through it to try to get any tangles out, finding virtually none. Gilfoyle takes serious care of his hair, and he had just washed and brushed it out before starting work today. So Dinesh tucks more hair behind Gilfoyle’s ears and starts using that to contribute to the small bun that he thinks he should be able to tie.

“Done,” Dinesh announces, and walks around Gilfoyle’s chair slightly so he can see the result of his hard work. There are a few loose hairs around Gilfoyle’s temple, but apart from that, it looks pretty decent. 

“Wow,” Gilfoyle remarks sarcastically, then blows upward on his face to make sure Dinesh sees all the hairs that he had missed float up and then fall back down onto Gilfoyle’s face. “If you need help getting your hair salon off the ground, I know a big freak who’s into birdwatching and SWOT analysis that would probably be willing to jump ship.” 

Gilfoyle turns his head to look at Dinesh directly, and Dinesh has a triumphant grin on his face that Gilfoyle wants to eradicate as quickly as possible. Gilfoyle looks at his screen momentarily to make sure he’s at a good stopping point before he rises from his seat, forcing Dinesh to take a step back.

“You can’t take it out yet. Let me have this  _ one  _ thing. I’ll give you ten dollars to leave it in until someone comes home,” Dinesh all but begs, still beaming, and he starts reaching for his wallet in his back pocket. Gilfoyle grabs that arm, though, and Dinesh’s face falls. He didn’t think Gilfoyle was annoyed enough to take this directly to a physical confrontation. But maybe he’s just losing touch with Gilfoyle lately.

“You think I’m worth,” Gilfoyle starts, and slowly pulls Dinesh toward him by the trip he has on his forearm. They’re close now, almost as close as they were when Gilfoyle was exhaling curls of smoke for Dinesh to lose himself in. “Ten  _ fucking  _ dollars?” His tone doesn’t give anything away, just as always. Dinesh doesn’t know what to expect, as always. Gilfoyle’s always either on board with Dinesh’s games or about to flip the table and scatter the pawns all over the fucking carpet, and Dinesh can never tell which. It makes him  _ delirious _ .

Dinesh begins to form his lips into a response, momentarily distracted by the slightly unkempt nature and depth of Gilfoyle’s beard, but then Gilfoyle’s completely in his space, delivering a kiss that has Dinesh’s eyebrows nearly up to his hairline. Gilfoyle’s mustache tickles and pricks at a Dinesh’s upper lip, but Dinesh is too shocked to dedicatedly kiss back, doing his best to soak in the way Gilfoyle’s skin and hair and lips feel against him as opposed to any time he’s ever kissed a woman. He can’t tell if this is better, especially when Gilfoyle pulls away like he’s doing now, but it’s certainly  _ something _ .

“Um,” is all Dinesh has to say, looking at Gilfoyle’s hand as it travels up his arm to rest lightly on his shoulder. Dinesh can feel the gaudy skull ring through the thin fabric of the polo he chose to wear today. Gilfoyle stares at Dinesh’s face intently, trying to force eye contact, but Dinesh won’t budge. Dinesh feels Gilfoyle’s grip weaken on his shoulder.

“If you didn’t want that, it probably would have been a good idea to say ‘hey, stop that,’ at any time in the half of a minute it took me to do that,” Gilfoyle explains to him. “Because now I’m the pervert.” He drops his hand. “And you didn’t want that.” He sounds neither certain nor questioning. It’s an inflection Dinesh doesn’t know if he’s ever heard before. Nervousness. “You can tell Erlich all about this one. He’ll love to hear it.”

“Will you shut the fuck up, you sad little sack of a bastard?” Dinesh asks curtly, and grabs Gilfoyle’s arm a little more firmly than he meant to when he sees Gilfoyle reaching up to untie his hair. “You never even let me finish a fucking sentence, you egotistical, satanic fuckface. You always have to have the best fucking joke and the last fucking laugh and you just  _ assume  _ shit about me when you don’t even know if it’s true!” Dinesh’s voice is high and his eyes are wild and Gilfoyle actually changes his expression to furrow his brows at the man standing before him.

“Okay. What did I assume this time, oh wise one?”

“You  _ assumed  _ I didn’t want to kiss you because you  _ assumed  _ I don’t like you because you’re a pessimistic little asshole who  _ always  _ has to be right  _ all the time _ ! You’d rather be miserable than wrong!” Dinesh responds, and he doesn’t know how they got there, but his hands are gently resting on either side of Gilfoyle’s neck. “But guess what? You’re  _ wrong _ , motherfucker.  _ Dead _ wrong. But you’d probably like that, wouldn’t you? Because then you’d get to be in Hell, with all your freaky little friends, and-” Dinesh isn’t sure who instigates it this time, but they’re kissing again, and Dinesh is actually kissing Gilfoyle this time, slotting their lips together over and over again and knocking Gilfoyle’s glasses a little sideways on his nose.

“And your-” Dinesh tries to continue, but Gilfoyle fucking  _ licks  _ into his mouth as he’s trying to complete a sentence, and that makes Dinesh’s knees buckle, but Gilfoyle’s there with sturdy arms to help keep him upright. “And your girlfriend, holy shit, your girlfriend, you have a girlfriend.” Dinesh pulls back abruptly, and it reminds Gilfoyle of that night by the pool. He keeps his hands firmly on Dinesh’s waist.

“You sure like to be right for someone who accused me of always having to be right,” Gilfoyle tells him, and Dinesh doesn’t like the way he’s smirking. Gilfoyle doesn’t just go around smiling unless he’s up to something or he just got laid. 

“I  _ am  _ right! You have a hot girlfriend! That I tried to sleep with! Because  _ you  _ told me she wanted that, you mother _ fucker _ .”

“Tara and I broke up three months ago, you fucking idiot,” Gilfoyle admits in exasperation. “Open relationships aren’t fun when your long distance girlfriend moves in with someone who you’re pretty sure is five days away from proposing.” Gilfoyle’s face gets a little serious at that, and Dinesh’s mind is reeling. 

“So you’re single?”

“Do I need to spell it out for you?”

“And I’m single.”

“No fucking way,” Gilfoyle deadpans, but it gives Dinesh a burst of adrenaline as his eyes flick between Gilfoyle’s eyes and lips.

“Hold on. Why didn’t you tell me you like men?”

“I’m a hedonistic Satanist whose last relationship was incredibly open to anyone of any gender, and I accidentally hit on Jared at that party after TechCrunch. If you thought I was straight, that’s entirely your fault,” Gilfoyle states plainly, and Dinesh’s eyes widen at how easily and freely he’s able to say it. “Plus, when you’re convinced your friend is straight, the last thing you want to do is tell him what a hot piece of ass he is.” Dinesh pulls back in Gilfoyle’s arms a little again.

“Okay, you’re fucking with me,” Dinesh nods with certainty. “I’ve never heard you talk to another human being that way.” All Gilfoyle can do is lean in and press one more achingly tender kiss to Dinesh’s lips. Dinesh has never been kissed this way, and has certainly never kissed anyone else that way.

“Because you’ve never heard me  _ flirt _ , asshole,” Gilfoyle responds. “I know you’re not used to people flirting with you on account of the fact that you have zero game.” Dinesh’s lips curve into a cocky smile as he sees Gilfoyle’s cheeks heat up, no hair falling in his face to hide them. “And I know you want to be right about me fucking with you.”

“I don’t want that,” Dinesh objects, surprising himself.

“Maybe you don’t want me to be fucking with you, which I’m not, but you definitely want to be right,” Gilfoyle compromises. “Because being wrong is a fucking nightmare.” One of Gilfoyle’s hands slides up to Dinesh’s face, cups his jaw and strokes his thumb over his cheek. “But I’ll bet you didn’t even know you liked men until five minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Dinesh scoffs, which turns into a chuckle, “oh-ho-ho. Try five  _ days _ ago, motherfucker. I totally jerked o-” Dinesh shuts himself down, curls his lips into his mouth and diverts his gaze from Gilfoyle’s eyes. He got too confident on his quest to have the upper hand. His voice is small when he speaks again, looking like a deer in headlights. “Thaaat’s not something you tell people, Dinesh.” Gilfoyle tilts his head.

“Finish the sentence,” Gilfoyle tells him. It sounds like a command, and Dinesh doesn’t have the time, brain capacity, or social awareness to unpack why that makes him harder in his jeans than he already is. It’s just an excitement boner. A lot has happened in the past few minutes that’s going to have a certain yet unpredictable impact on Dinesh’s life.

“I jerked off. Five days ago. Just wanted you to know. Unclogged the ol’ pipes. You know. Guy stuff,” Dinesh shrugs, putting on his pseudo-macho persona to try - and, he already knows, fail - to throw Gilfoyle off his trail.

“Congrats. I did that twice this morning. Now finish the sentence, you punk bitch.” Dinesh is glad Gilfoyle’s still insulting him. It would feel weird and scary if he didn’t. 

“I think it might violate the Pied Piper employee handbook.”

“Fine. We’ll get out of the workspace. You can tell me in your room,” Gilfoyle instructs, and despite the fact that he looks completely unamused and stoic, Dinesh can see in his eyes that Gilfoyle is affected. And Gilfoyle is invested. And Gilfoyle means all of this. That’s maybe the scariest part of all.

* * *

“I  _ know _ what  _ pegging  _ is, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh snaps playfully as he pulls his shirt off over his head like Gilfoyle told him to. He’s doing a lot of things Gilfoyle tells him to, and Dinesh is more into it than he’d ever admit, half because he likes the guidance, half because he kind of likes taking orders from Gilfoyle’s deep, flat voice that gets gruffer and gruffer every time their lips or hands or chests touch the other’s. “I just never thought that’d be something you’d...be into.”

“I know. You said you just started thinking about banging me five days ago,” Gilfoyle responds casually. He’s already shirtless, underneath Dinesh on Dinesh’s deep blue comforter, and Dinesh would be fine taking a twenty minute break just so he could look at and touch Gilfoyle’s chest. “Consciously, at least.” Dinesh’s shirt is off, and he’s never been one to be comfortable with even his half naked body, so he folds himself over Gilfoyle for another kiss instead of letting Gilfoyle catch too much of a glimpse of his chest. “Why didn’t you think I’d get pegged? Is it my unwavering masculinity and charming extroversion?” Dinesh snorts a laugh at that, burying his face in Gilfoyle’s neck as he laughs, and Gilfoyle chuckles slowly.

Why is this fun? Sex is usually...not scary, but nerve-racking for Dinesh. He doesn’t know what women want or how they like to be kissed or what they want him to say. But Gilfoyle’s still Gilfoyle. Gilfoyle’s body is both different and the same as Dinesh’s, which makes Dinesh a little more confident that he might actually be able to do something to benefit Gilfoyle sexually. Holy shit. “Gilfoyle” and “sexually” in the same sentence. Dinesh still doesn’t quite know how he got here, but then Gilfoyle is finally reaching up to undo his bun and shake his hair loose and it’s  _ hot _ , holy  _ fuck _ , it’s hot, sorry Gilfoyle but  _ Jesus Christ he’s hot _ . 

“Or is it the thirty plus years of misguided heterosexuality telling you that men are straight until proven gay and, thus,  _ can’t _ like taking some dick up the ass?” Gilfoyle continues, and Dinesh nearly chokes on nothing, electing to kiss gently at Gilfoyle’s neck instead of responding and embarrassing himself any further. “Think it’s that one?”

“Yes I think it’s that one,” Dinesh responds shortly. Gilfoyle guides Dinesh by the back of the head so they can kiss some more, Gilfoyle relentlessly lapping into Dinesh’s mouth with an eager tongue, their lips smacking together every few seconds. Dinesh is hard. Impossibly so. He’s still been trying to avoid letting his lower body come into contact with Gilfoyle’s out of fear that Gilfoyle isn’t in the same boat.

Gilfoyle, however, has been thinking about this for months. When he teased Dinesh and falsely told him Tara wanted to sleep with him, it was to get a gauge on how okay Dinesh would have been with a threesome. His initial abject panic instead of a simple “fuck you, I’m straight” told Gilfoyle that Dinesh perhaps needed some more time in the oven. But Dinesh is unassumingly hot and Gilfoyle’s been hooked for a while. Dinesh has quite a bit of muscle underneath the horrendous clothes he chooses to wear on purpose, and Dinesh has nice hair, and Dinesh has a cute voice that dips into hot territory whenever he’s tired or upset, and Dinesh has a nice jaw that Gilfoyle’s now gotten the pleasure to kiss, and Dinesh has a lethal combination of insecurity and (albeit often misguided) confidence that has him grinding down against Gilfoyle the second Gilfoyle raises his hips to let Dinesh feel his own erection beneath his lounge shorts.

“Oh my god,” Dinesh gasps as they fall into a semi-rhythm of sloppy dry humping. Dinesh feels like a fucking teenager again, and Gilfoyle can’t believe he’s this turned on by Dinesh’s eagerness. But then Gilfoyle’s hands are firm on Dinesh’s hips. Dinesh thinks he quite likes that, too.

“No, see, we can’t do that. We can’t do the god thing,” Gilfoyle tells him, and Dinesh smooths some hair out of his face before dipping down for another kiss.

“What do you want me to say? Oh my Satan?”

“Yes, Dinesh. I want you to say ‘oh my Satan’ while we have sex for the first time,” Gilfoyle states impassively. “That will turn me on so much and make me cream my pants for you.”

“Okay, dickhead, then what the fuck am I supposed to say?”

“You can say my name,” Gilfoyle suggests, and cranes his neck to the side so he can nip at Dinesh’s earlobe. Dinesh quite likes that proposition. The feeling of Gilfoyle’s beard against the side of his face is another sensation entirely, and Dinesh’s cock twitches beneath his pants. He could cum like this. That’s terrifying. “You can tell me how it feels. You don’t have to say anything.” Dinesh is about to open his mouth again; Gilfoyle can feel Dinesh’s jaw move against his own. “But I know it’s impossible for you to keep your mouth shut.”

That takes Dinesh from a 10 to an 11 immediately. He’s never been talked to like this in bed before, and every time he’s tried to do the dirty talking, his partners always told him it’d be better if he didn’t. Sex was fairly silent before Gilfoyle, and they haven’t even gotten to the good part yet. But Dinesh thinks all of this has been  _ really  _ fucking good so far.

“Can you take your fucking pants off already?” Gilfoyle purrs monotonously in his ear, and Dinesh is up off the bed in a second. “I said take them off, not get off of me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll still get off..on...you, yes, get off on you,” Dinesh responds, and he can palpably feel why all those women told him to shut up in the past. Gilfoyle, on the other hand, grins. With his eyes and his cheeks and his lips and his teeth and Dinesh thinks it’s fucking  _ breathtaking _ . “Don’t look at me like that. Words are hard, okay? Especially when all my blood is in my fucking  _ dick _ right now.”

“Yes, Dinesh, tell me more about your blood dick,” Gilfoyle deadpans, but then Dinesh unbuttons his jeans and takes them and his underwear off in one fell swoop. “You suck at following directions. I said your pants.” Dinesh’s cock bobs in between them, nice and weighty, and Gilfoyle licks his lips. “But you’re actually really fucking hard, holy shit. Come here.” Gilfoyle reaches out to pull Dinesh back toward the bed by his hip.

“Where else would I go?”

“No,” Gilfoyle grunts when Dinesh tries to resume their original position. He causes Dinesh to go a little off balance as he pulls him aggressively up toward the head of the bed. Dinesh kneels with both legs just to the side of Gilfoyle’s chest, and Gilfoyle shimmies his body to sit up a little against the headboard. “This. This is good.” Dinesh’s cock is just a few inches from Gilfoyle’s mouth. Gilfoyle had told Dinesh about the pegging, but…

“Oh, holy mother of-- fuck, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh shudders as Gilfoyle tentatively takes the head of Dinesh’s cock into his mouth. Gilfoyle pulls back off with an exaggerated pop and uses one hand to feel up Dinesh’s length.

“You probably shouldn’t bring up my mother, either.” Dinesh could slap him, but he won’t. “Especially not while I’m sucking you off.” Gilfoyle takes him back into his mouth, only for a few more seconds before he has something else to say. So much for Dinesh being the talkative one. “Do you have lube?” Dinesh starts to panic again, and Gilfoyle sighs at the wild look in his eyes. “Relax, Dinesh, you don’t have to fuck me today. It’s just good to have.”

“No, I don’t have any,” Dinesh admits. “I h-have, like, lotion.” His breath hitches every few seconds as Gilfoyle strokes him a bit dryly. Upon his answer, though, Gilfoyle spits crudely into the palm of his hand to begin stroking Dinesh in earnest. 

“No lube?”

“No. Why would I? Do you...even need lube for-”

“Just because pussies get wet doesn’t mean you don’t need lube,” Gilfoyle explains, but he doesn’t sound exasperated like he usually does when he talks to Dinesh. He just sounds like he’d rather be talking about cock right now. One cock in particular. Gilfoyle licks flat across the tip of Dinesh’s cock, taking precum into his mouth and letting his eyes slip shut when he tastes it. Gilfoyle’s only done this a few times, not super great at the mechanics of taking a dick into his mouth, but he knows that he, for whatever reason, has always been absolutely enamored with the taste. All musky and salty and heady. Dinesh is no different.

“Okay. I’ll get lube.” Gilfoyle wraps his lips around the head of his cock and hollows his cheeks, looking up at Dinesh casually as he does so, and the pinched look on Dinesh’s face makes Gilfoyle bring one hand to his own crotch to grind the heel of his palm against his own dick.

“Dinesh Chugtai,” Gilfoyle announces after pulling off of Dinesh’s cock yet again. Dinesh really wishes he’d stop doing that, but he also likes when Gilfoyle runs his mouth like this. “I’m going to make you good at sex.” Dinesh laughs a little at that, breathy and nearly intoxicated despite being completely sober.

“Sex with just you, though, right?”

“Yes, sex with just me. I’ve shared in the past, but I think if I saw anyone else put their hand down your pants I might...act out.” Dinesh knows jealousy and possessiveness is tacky, but the way Gilfoyle’s already claimed him in a way has Dinesh aching, both inside and out.

“Me too,” Dinesh sighs, then fully groans as Gilfoyle rubs his beard against Dinesh’s cock. That...that’s completely new. “I don’t want to share.” Maybe it’s selfish, especially since Dinesh knows Gilfoyle’s last two relationships - at least - were open, but the way Gilfoyle’s pupils dilate make Dinesh hopeful that this is all okay.

“You don’t have to,” Gilfoyle agrees. It’s not that Dinesh is special, or that this is more than just fun and casual sex. Except for the fact that it is totally and completely both of those things. Gilfoyle’s been waiting for this, yearning, almost aching for it - not just the sex, the kissing, the way Dinesh presses into every single touch Gilfoyle gives him. Dinesh just feels right. Jared and Richard always joke about them bickering like a married couple, but Gilfoyle always knew there was some truth to that. You can’t get under somebody’s skin like they do every single day without there being some amount of love and understanding there - even just platonic. “Just us.”

* * *

Much to his chagrin, Gilfoyle ends up on top of Dinesh after Dinesh all but completely froze the second Gilfoyle slid his shorts down. Gilfoyle’s  _ What, you never seen a dick before?  _ was met by Dinesh’s  _ I’m looking at one right now _ as he stared challengingly at Gilfoyle’s face. Then Gilfoyle had no choice but to flip them over, drinking in Dinesh’s surprised but downright hungry expression.

His hair is falling in his face and he misses the clumsy weight of Dinesh on top of him, but the second he slides his cock right up alongside Dinesh’s, their groans mingle in the air and Gilfoyle couldn’t care less who’s lying where and what angle. He just wants more of Dinesh. As much of him as Dinesh will allow.

“Shit, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh hisses with his eyes shut. Gilfoyle wishes he’d open them, but he gets it. The first time is uncoordinated and vulnerable and a little embarrassing. All Gilfoyle’s doing is rubbing the head of his cock along Dinesh’s erection, but it’s so different and new and  _ good _ that Dinesh can’t help himself. The fact that he’s even saying Gilfoyle’s name at all like this is still something he has to wrap his head around, but it just makes sense.

“Feel good?” Gilfoyle asks blankly, an attempt to mask his own desire. Dinesh finally meets his eyes, and Gilfoyle’s question is answered without words. “Your cock is fucking nice.” If they weren’t in such a compromising and intimate scenario, that would sound like a joke coming out of Gilfoyle’s mouth. But he means it, and grinds himself harder against Dinesh, both of them beginning to pant as Gilfoyle sets the pace for their frotting.

“ _ Your  _ cock is fucking nice,” Dinesh responds, the words feeling foreign in his mouth, but the way it makes Gilfoyle grin like a fucking cat who got the cream is completely worth it.

“You just gonna turn this into a competition like always?” Gilfoyle challenges, but he’s becoming slightly out of breath.. He leans over Dinesh and braces himself on one elbow so he can kiss him while still maintaining control over the slide of their dicks together.

“No, a competition would be seeing who can last the longest before finishing.”

“You can say ‘cumming.’ I’m rubbing my dick on your dick. You can say ‘cumming,’” Gilfoyle informs him plainly. “But if that’s the name of the game, I have some  _ bad  _ news for you.” Dinesh’s eyes widen slowly. Gilfoyle removes his hand from his own dick and grinds hands-free while he licks at his thumb and uses the wet digit to tease one of Dinesh’s nipples.

“Holy fucking shit, Gilfoyle, Gilfoyle,” Dinesh utters, arching his back in a way he’s only seen girls do in shitty porn videos. Gilfoyle tips his head back slightly and moans, probably louder than necessary, but Dinesh wants that image to repeat in his mind for the rest of time.

“Fuck, I’m so glad you’re into that, dude. Shit.”

“Okay,” Dinesh starts, “If I can’t say ‘god,’ then you can’t say ‘ _ dude _ .’"

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you worship the anti-Dude?” Gilfoyle asks, then dips down to lick over Dinesh’s nipple instead of simply thumbing at it. Dinesh makes a noise in the back of his throat then arches again, getting frustrated with their now off-kilter pace. “Fine. No ‘dude.’ But the least you could do is make yourself useful.”

Gilfoyle, once again, spits without remorse, this time into Dinesh’s hand before he moves it between the two of them. Dinesh is slightly confused, wrapping his hand around Gilfoyle only, which - admittedly - does feel fucking incredible.

“No, both,” Gilfoyle tells him gently, but still with an edge to his voice. “You’re a big boy. I’ve seen your hands. You can do it.” Dinesh shivers at that. Had Gilfoyle been making note of his hands? Dinesh supposes he’s guilty of the same crime, obsessing over Gilfoyle’s long fingers wrapped around bottles, his well-kempt nails, the dark hair dusted across the backs of his hands. 

When Dinesh gets the gist, Gilfoyle resumes teasing Dinesh’s dark nipples, thrusting his hips every so often to add extra sensation as Dinesh jerks them both. The slide of Gilfoyle’s cock along his own is heavenly to Dinesh, especially when Gilfoyle’s thick cockhead butts right up against the underside of his own. It’s impossibly good. Dinesh would be happy with this every single day, no need to go any further. But then he thinks back to Gilfoyle’s mouth. He only had it on him for about a minute, but the heat, the warmth, the wetness, the-

“That’s it,” Gilfoyle encourages, and Dinesh grinds against Gilfoyle as rhythmically as he can, trying to keep the balance between his hand around their cocks, his mouth on Gilfoyle’s, and the deep coil in his lower belly that keeps threatening to snap over and over again. Any word falling from Gilfoyle’s mouth is too much. 

“Gilfoyle, I-”

“I thought you wanted to have a competition,” Gilfoyle almost pouts.

“You didn’t even let me finish my fucking sentence,” Dinesh chastises him, grip tightening around the two of them, “ _ again _ .” Gilfoyle grins into another kiss to Dinesh’s swollen lips. It’s a good look on him. All of this is a good look on Dinesh. Gilfoyle’s happy to be the one to give him good sex, because Satan knows how long it’s been since Dinesh has gotten any of that, if ever. 

“Are you going to cum?” Gilfoyle asks, and it’s such a brash question, but Dinesh can’t stop bucking his hips. It feels illegally fucking good, and he can’t tell if it’s because there’s a cock against his own, or because that cock belongs to Gilfoyle. Maybe a mixture of the two is best. Dinesh’s hand falters a bit, getting tired of stretching around both of them entirely, so he falls into a rhythm of mostly stroking Gilfoyle’s cock while rutting up against him. This definitely counts as Dinesh’s cardio for the week.

“Shut up,” Dinesh snaps, but his breathing is ragged and uneven and Gilfoyle takes some weird kind of pleasure in watching Dinesh’s hairy chest heave up and down underneath him. “Maybe.” Dinesh chases Gilfoyle’s lips, groans against them. “I don’t know.” 

“Sounds like you don’t know much,” Gilfoyle teases. Dinesh is a little lost as to how Gilfoyle’s able to string together more than three words right now. Gilfoyle bats Dinesh’s hand away between them and changes their positioning so he’s solely jerking off Dinesh at this point. “How about now?”

“Yes,  _ yes _ , Gilfoyle, fuck!” Dinesh whines, and it’d be pathetic if it wasn’t so damn beautiful and maddening. Dinesh is vulnerable and inexperienced but doing so well for him, responding so well and not shying away from stimulation to his most sensitive spots. Gilfoyle’s hand is firm on his cock, expertly twisting at the head as he gazes down at Dinesh and breaths along with him. “Shit, shit, I’m close, I’m so close.”

Gilfoyle sits up a bit to stroke himself off in tandem with his hand on Dinesh, and though Dinesh is disappointed to not be able to kiss Gilfoyle anymore, it’s worth it to see the man on top of him panting, strands of hair plastered to his forehead and the side of his face as he takes them both toward their respective climax. Dinesh cums first, because of course he does, and Gilfoyle slows his hand as he watches Dinesh’s body twitch and jerk and paint itself white in a few separate places.

“Holy shit,” Dinesh beams, almost giggling as he comes down from it. Gilfoyle slowly begins to pump himself again, raking his eyes over Dinesh’s soiled chest and replaying Dinesh’s noises in his mind over and over again. “You look so good.” Dinesh’s words are almost slurred, sounding fucked and blissed out despite only frotting.

“You want to help?” Gilfoyle asks, glancing down at his dick in hand. Dinesh nods wordlessly, propping himself up on an elbow and waiting expectantly. “Stroke my balls.” Dinesh freezes for a second, unsure if Gilfoyle’s being serious or not.

“You don’t want me to chortle them?” Dinesh mocks playfully, and Gilfoyle hits him with a blank stare in the midst of jerking his cock, the noises starting to become obscene as Gilfoyle leaks more and more precum.

“No, I want you to play with my fucking balls, Dinesh,” Gilfoyle responds sternly. “Because it feels fucking amazing and I want your hand on me.” That’s one of the longer sentences that Gilfoyle’s said all day that wasn’t related to one of Dinesh’s many bugs within his code. So Dinesh complies. He reaches out to cup Gilfoyle’s balls, Gilfoyle guiding him with his free hand until Dinesh is applying just the right amount of pressure to his balls.

Gilfoyle cums loudly and for about as long as Dinesh had. Dinesh wishes he could get hard again this quickly when he hears Gilfoyle’s punched-out groans and grunts and attempts at Dinesh’s name as he spills all over Dinesh’s chest and crotch. Dinesh never took Gilfoyle for being loud in bed, but Dinesh supposes he never took Gilfoyle for anything when it came to sex, really.

“Holy fuck,” Dinesh shivers, a dopey grin plastered on his face for what will probably be hours to come.

“Fuck,” Gilfoyle agrees, succumbing to his tired muscles and flopping down next to Dinesh on the bed. Dinesh plucks a few tissues from the box next to his bed and drops some unceremoniously onto Gilfoyle’s body, mostly so Gilfoyle can help get the mess off of Dinesh. “If you had just stayed on top, this wouldn’t have happened.” 

“Oh, are you complaining?” Dinesh teases as they clean up then toss the tissues into a bin right beside Dinesh’s bed. There’s a comfortable silence as Gilfoyle’s hand skims up Dinesh’s chest to make sure there’s no traces of any fluid left. All clear. Dinesh does shudder once more, though, as Gilfoyle’s pinky finger gently traces over his nipple.

“No,” Gilfoyle grumbles. Dinesh doesn’t really know where to go from here. He’s got a naked man in his bed and they’re both starting to shiver from the stimulation and the air in the room which they now realize is slightly cool rather than magma hot like it had felt when they were making out and rutting and sighing and coming apart together.

* * *

Dinesh wakes up a little while later completely wrapped in his comforter. He keeps his eyes closed and repeats to himself over and over -  _ you had sex. With Gilfoyle. You and Gilfoyle had sex _ . He expects to see an empty bed when he opens his eyes, but the man in question is still lying quietly beside him, scrolling through an article on his phone which he had somehow procured in the time Dinesh was napping.

“Do you always steal the covers like that? Because that might grow to be a problem,” Gilfoyle states, not peeling his eyes away from his phone screen. Dinesh is afraid to speak, afraid things are weird now that they’re not in their post-coital haze, but Gilfoyle looks  _ good _ lounging naked in his bed, hair a little more kempt now than before.

“Maybe if you had, I don’t know, snuggled me for warmth…” Dinesh trails off forlornly, teasing Gilfoyle, but he really truly wouldn’t have minded waking up with a naked man pressed up against his equally naked body.

“Say the word ‘snuggle’ to my face one more time, Dinesh.”

“Holy snuggling mother of  _ Christ _ , what words  _ am  _ I allowed to say?”

It’s the last straw for Gilfoyle, and usually this would result in a wrestling match on the floor or a game of hot potato with Dinesh’s phone, but Gilfoyle just rolls over and presses himself halfway onto to Dinesh, who’s still tucked tightly into the comforter.

“You’re kind of insufferable,” Gilfoyle informs him, but instead of a punch or a pinch or a noogie, Dinesh gets a sweet kiss on the lips. He finds himself realizing he’ll have to get used to the tickle of Gilfoyle’s facial hair against his own usually-smooth face, but it’s not an adjustment he’s unwelcome to.

“Just kind of?”

“Just kind of,” Gilfoyle surrenders. “I ordered pizza for everyone considering we banged in the afternoon and slept through dinner, so that’ll be here soon.” Dinesh can’t remember the last time Gilfoyle offered to buy a meal for everyone. Maybe some good dick is already starting to change Gilfoyle for the better. Or he wants to use this good deed as leverage to mooch more weed and booze off of Erlich. Dinesh eyes Gilfoyle’s face up and down. It’s definitely the latter.

“Did you get me my -”

“Dinesh, I got you your fucking garlic knots and gross pineapple pizza. I know your pizza order. I know your coffee order. I know what kind of car wash you get at the place down the road. I’m in your fucking mind.”

“Wow, you must really have it bad for me,” Dinesh says with a wiggle of his brows. Gilfoyle is expressionless, but his face softens just a bit when Dinesh leans forward slightly to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“It’s more so because you never shut up and give everybody entirely too much information.”

“Oh, okay. So, it’s not because you have a thing for me and remember little things about me that other people don’t,” Dinesh clarifies with a playful yet sarcastic lilt to his voice. Gilfoyle sighs deeply. “Alright. Thank you for your feedback. I will mark this one down as Gilfoyle not having a thing for me.”

“You’re such a fucking egotist,” Gilfoyle murmurs and presses a line of kisses against Dinesh’s sturdy jawline. “I have several things for you.” 

“All of them good?” Dinesh sounds too hopeful and corny for his own liking, but Gilfoyle’s cheeks are still red, even as he rolls his eyes.

“Most of them. Just never say the ‘g’ word in the bedroom ever again or I won’t be putting your dick anywhere near my mouth.”

“Okay. So...you  _ don’t _ want me to say ‘Gilfoyle,’ is that what I’m hearing?”

“Do you derive pleasure from being an asinine little shitstain?”

“Do you derive pleasure from my penis?”

“I’m getting my clothes on now,” Gilfoyle announces, and climbs out of bed without giving Dinesh a chance to protest. Dinesh sits up fully and watches Gilfoyle yank on article after neutral-toned article of clothing.

“Can I put your hair up again before you go?” Dinesh asks, and he means for it to be teasing, but it comes out sweet as saccharine and almost steals Gilfoyle’s breath away. Gilfoyle draws in a deep breath, eyes raking over Dinesh’s half-exposed body and feigning contemplation.

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Please?”

“Fine.”


End file.
